Toyota given 30 days to hand over documents related acceleration recall

Faced with about 230 federal lawsuits across the United States and another 100 or so filed in state courts, Toyota is now having to meet the demands of a U.S. federal judge to turn over documentation related to the ‘unintended acceleration’ recall.

This is great news for Toyota accident victims, and their lawyers trying to secure justice and fair compensation in Toyota-related accident cases.

U.S. District Judge James Selna ordered Toyota to turn over English-language documents within the next 30 days, and Japanese-language documents in the next 60 days.  Toyota may hold back any documents it considers “privileged” (for example, communication between Toyota and its attorneys).

This is certainly a blow to Toyota, but one they brought on themselves after questions were raised about how much they knew about the unintended acceleration problem in their vehicles.  The NHTSA blamed up to 89 deaths on unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles.  This is higher than their previous estimate of 52 deaths.

Right now Toyota is facing about $10 billion in civil suits over this major defect, as consumers and crash victims look to recover money for serious injuries or economic loss (for example, reduced resale value on a recalled vehicle).

In one month we’ll know what Toyota was willing to hand over, and if these documents contain the story of what really has been going on behind the scenes at the auto giant.